Embarassing Material Search Filter is Lobbied

Disgraced motorsport executive Max Mosley keeps making attempts to promote an idea to implement search engine filters in order to weed out embarrassing content. Max Mosley should know a thing or two about embarrassing leaks, because he was the one who found himself embroiled in a very controversial sex scandal a couple years ago, courtesy of the defunct News of the World. At the time, the tabloid published pictures of Mosley’s sexual escapades involving 5 sex workers dressed up as prison guards, calling the episode as a “Nazi orgy”. Of course, this didn’t go down well with Mosley, as his father was the leader of the British Union of Fascists. Nevertheless, Max claimed there was nothing Nazi about the kinky role play.

Unsurprisingly, Mosley went on the defensive, and required that newspapers must alert famous people before they publish articles about them, which allow them to block any undesirable reports. However, the European Court of Human Rights disagreed and rejected Mosley’s request, who still believes that it is possible to erase such material from public record. He explains that what should be done is filtering of Google in an attempt to change the past by taking down hundreds of websites and forcing the search giant to stop displaying embarrassing search results.

The problem is that Google have automatic search machines, which means that if somebody puts something up somewhere, if you Google “Max Mosley” it will appear, which is wrong, because the content is illegal, and the photos have been ruled illegal in the English High Court. Max Mosley then took his case to French and German courts, because he believed that continental jurisprudence is more favorable to his demands. Even if the courts ruled that the search giant needs to censor the photos, they won’t be deleted and still be easily accessible. In other words, even if the court rules in his favor, Mosley would have to go back to court and require mandatory filters on various social networks and other engines. Anyway, it is surprising that French and German courts haven’t rejected these requests at once, because the similar demands were deemed illegal by the European Court of Justice.

At the moment, a Google image search for Mosley is mostly legitimate pictures of him, but the engine puts a remark at the bottom that according to a legitimate request submitted to Google, it has removed some results from that page.

Microsoft Claimed that Linux is Wasted Cash

Microsoft has recently gone to Munich claiming that the city wasted a lot of money by dumping its software in favor of Linux. At the same time, the software giant refused to provide proof, so everyone would just have to take its word for it.

According to both Microsoft and HP, the German city made a mistake when it calculated that switching from Windows to Linux saved Munich millions. Apparently, Munich has annoyed Microsoft by claiming that it saved over $14 million up to date. The software giant carried out one of its special Total Cost of Ownership studies, which found out that Munich would have saved more than $57 million if it had stuck with Microsoft.

The German weekly Focus, which had the figures in question, claimed that the software company wanted to say that if Munich had stayed with Windows XP and Office 2003 instead of choosing Linux and OpenOffice.org, it would have saved a fortune. Microsoft confirmed that the Munich’s own calculations didn’t consider all migration costs and compared the migration to a decade-old Linux version with a migration to a newer version of Windows (for instance, Windows 7). In case Munich had stuck with Windows, it wouldn’t have needed any new software.

In the meanwhile, the report found out that 25% of the desktops are still running Windows, as not all apps can be migrated to Linux. The results of the report were leaked to the press by one of the HP employees, but neither HP nor Microsoft are now willing to disseminate it more broadly.

Most of industry experts admitted that they couldn’t understand Microsoft’s reasoning, saying that it would be tricky to see how a Windows deployment can be any cheaper than a Linux alternative. Perhaps, the reason Microsoft wasn’t releasing the report is because the software giant suspected there were some mistakes in it.

After all, the software giant might be going back to the good old days when it used to print bogus reports about the total cost of ownership of Linux with fabled figures simply for marketing purposes. 

Musicians against CNET

A lawsuit involving Alki David plus a number of R&B and hip-hop musicians and CNET was started last November. The battle was headed by Alki David and involved a handful of musicians who sued CBSI’s subsidiary CNET for encouraging piracy by offering advice on how to use file-sharing platforms. Last July, a federal judge confirmed that CNET’s actions should be scrutinized. Finally, last November the artists asked for a preliminary injunction.

In response, CBS Interactive filed a 25-page memorandum a week ago, claiming that any suggestion that reports on the distribution of legitimate music via the BitTorrent protocol evidences intent to encourage infringement is just absurd. They point out that the injunction plaintiffs seek would substantially damage their business of providing a comprehensive index of software applications and editorial information about them.

The most interesting thing is that the injunction wouldn’t prevent either downloads of BitTorrent client software, or potential infringement of plaintiffs’ content. Even if CBSI were enjoined from linking to services providing downloads of BitTorrent applications, those would still remain available to Internet users and would still be easily found by a simple Google search – albeit without the warning against violation that CBSI provides.

In addition, the public interest would be damaged by denying legal and truthful data about a pervasive technology and by impending non-infringing uses.

The memorandum also stressed the fact that the plaintiffs didn’t prove not only the ownership of works, but also the irreversible damage done by CNET. The company also insists that “vague and broad requests for injunctive relief aimed targeting speech or the press raise serious First Amendment issues”.

CNET explained that it wasn’t planning to give any validation to a product which CBS is considering illegal, other networks considered illegal and one court has already found to violate the copyright act in its application. Except for that, CNET will cover every other product and service, or that’s what the company’s representative said when talking about the company’s decision to prohibit CNET from publishing reviews about such technologies as Dish Network-owned AutoHopper and Aereo’s TV streaming device.

5-year-old DNS Bug Still Alive

One of the nasty bugs in the DNS system of the worldwide web is still installed on many PCs all over the world.

The Kaminsky bug, named after its discoverer, was found 5 years ago. Although a fix has been issued, it turned out that only a handful of American broadband providers, financial institutions and e-commerce companies have deployed it. The discoverer warned at the time that the vulnerability made it possible for cyber attackers to carry out cache poisoning attacks, redirecting traffic from a legitimate site to a fake one without both the site operator and end user knowing that.

It appeared that the only way to fix the problem was DNSSEC, using digital signatures and public-key encryption to let the websites to verify their domain names and corresponding IP addresses and thus prevent intermediary attacks. However, the statistics say that a ridiculously low number of American corporations have deployed DNSSEC.

In fact, none of the top 100 largest American e-commerce companies tested by Secure64 was using digital signatures to sign their zones, nor were they validating DNSSEC queries. The recent survey, conducted weekly by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, showed that less than 1% of 1,000 US industry sites have fully deployed DNSSEC, including Comcast, PayPal, Data Mountain, Infoblox, and Sprint. In the meanwhile, Dyncorp, Simon Property and Juniper Networks have done so partly.

Worse still, the names saying they aren’t deploying DNSSEC included such giants of the US industry as Bank of America, Delta Air Lines, Disney, eBay, Apple, Cisco, Google, IBM and Symantec. 

Copyright Owners Want Cash Instead of Disconnection for Infringement

Various measures against online piracy have been adopted by a number of countries, including the United Kingdom (which has its DEA) and France (HADOPI). Generally, their regulations stipulate tempering with an infringer’s account up to total disconnection. Copyright owners, however, offer another solution: financial penalties.

Ofcom’s Initial Obligations Code says that ISPs have to send out notifications to Internet accounts alleged of conducting unauthorized activities. In addition, repeat offenders might face the full extent of the law, because broadband providers can send their personal details to copyright owners. In addition, ISPs could also temper with infringers’ connection speeds or disconnect them from the web. This drastic measure could be introduced if notifications appear inefficient in fighting Internet piracy.

French HADOPI, also referred to as the “three-strikes” system, is quite similar to the British Digital Economy Act. However, French activists have been against this anti-piracy legislation since the beginning, and claimed that disconnection from the web constitutes a brutal display of power. In response, copyright owners have come up with a different approach. Media reports reveal that outfits like the Union of Independent Phonographic Producers and SACEM (both of this groups support the country’s music industry) have come up with the suggestion that the ultimate measure (disconnection from the web) should be replaced with a fine of 140 euros. Music labels, including Warner Music, were fond of the idea, claiming that there hadn’t been a lot of repression. They come with a logical explanation of the idea, saying that the main part of their mission has failed. If the public and the industry agree that downloading is against the law, it must be punished, and it is nothing new. That’s why Thierry Chassagne, Warner Music’s president, believes that a system of fines would be more proportionate and efficient in the fight against illegal distribution of the copyrighted works. Actually, it may come true, as the proposal is currently being scrutinized by France’s politicians.